Synopsis: She comes home and tries not to wake him up. Set a little ahead of the current manga timeline. Kakashi/Rin

Kissed you last night and you kicked me

Ran away cos you don't want to need me

Fair enough baby, but we both know we

Were never really meant to be free

We need to let go of how its s'posed to turn out

We didn't ask to go so wrong

Give up on 'happily ever after' and the crowd

And accept how we are is not our fault

And for people like us this is as right as it can go

Cos it's not safe for us to be alone

And for someones like us white light and the dark

Aren't meant to be so far apart

Hell, for all we know maybe this is right enough.

- Right Enough, Halo666

It's three a.m. on a winter night and Rin has just come home. She unlocks the door and slips quietly into the dark apartment, rubbing her eyes - sore after fourteen straight hours under hospital flourescence - and trying not to yawn.

The apartment is the same as it's always been. Small, but a little cluttered nowadays; faded, with care rather than wear she thinks; and home to two ninjas and a potted plant. Sometimes its home to a pack of nin dogs too, but not tonight. Tonight its silent save for the shallow breathing of the one in the bed and the sound of the other locking the door behind her.

She quietly kicks off her sandals, shrugs off her jacket and sweater and slips silently across the small room. She could get changed, but it's too cold and she knows she'd make alot of noise. Right now she's trying to be quiet. Someone else is asleep in the bed she's easing into and she knows he's been on a long mission, and will be sent on another one before he should be. He needs all the sleep he can get and she doesn't want to--

"Hey," a sleepy voice murmurs.

She sighs and finds his hand under the covers, cool and scarred, and slips her fingers into his. He'd woken up, he couldn't help it. It's probably instinct to him, and she should feel glad because it's likely saved his life, but she's secretly hoping one day he'll do something close enough to normal and remain blissfully unaware as she crawls into bed next to him.

"I was trying not to wake you," she murmurs a little guiltily. She feels him shrug next to her and a second later a small kiss falls on her cheek. It's not really a reply, but she knows its the best he can give.

"How long have we got?" she whispers after a moment or two.

"Til dawn," he answers, this time sounding like the guilty one.

But she smiles. She'd smile if he'd said thirty seconds. After almost half their lives apart she'll take and treasure every moment with him. Turning on her side she looks at Kakashi lying next to her and feels her breath taken a little away. Somehow she's always surprised to see him, given how low his chances for survival always were; and she's always a little amazed by the fact that his eyes can still hold a spark after all he's suffered and survived. He's facing her and her eyes are drawn to the silver tags hung around his neck. His father's tags, and he never takes them off. A reminder of how she knows his life is probably fated to unfold and a future she fights to stave off every day. Of a past that broke him a long time ago, and left her to puzzle up the pieces even though she doubts anyone outside of the divine can.

Her attention is taken away from those painfully resigned thoughts as he blinks his mismatched eyes. Even in the darkness of the cheap little apartment she can see the Sharingan swirls slowly spinning in one eye. It happens when he wakes up, a kind of knee-jerk reaction, and depending on his state of mind they'll spin in different ways. Tonight they're moving slow, and she's relieved because that means his mission wasn't a bad one. He's just numbingly tired, as he so often is. As they both are.

The observation makes up her mind and she kisses his pale forehead and whispers to him, "Please go back to sleep Kakashi," hoping for once he'll do what he's told and get the rest he needs.

Too exhausted to argue, and not sure if he wants to anyway, he yawns a little and nods, scrunching his eyes shut and burrowing deeper under the blankets. At moments like these she knows it was worth every injury to her soul to avoid killing her heart when she became a ninja; otherwise how could she feel it swell when she watched him to that?

He's back asleep in seconds and she curls up next to him, keeping them both warm, before letting her eyes drift shut too.

Tonight was a good night.

Three months experience says together they'll stay there til they decide to move. Usually they go tend to their duty because that's who and what they were raised to be... but once or twice they've missed a whole day's work because they couldn't leave each other. Tsunade hasn't said anything about it, maybe she figures its about time Kakashi got cut a damn break and she always liked Rin anyway.

Their friends have noticed too. Now they've cottoned on to the situation, Team 7 tease Kakashi mercilessly, especially the recently recovered Sasuke; which is why he doesn't retailiate all that extremely. Just the odd shuriken aimed at their extremites. Asuma, Genma and company don't say anything because they know they wouldn't get a word out of him - but they can see he's a little more grounded than he was and they'd be lying if they said the fact didn't cheer them up. On her completely miraculous return (from the grave according to the official records) Rin was immediately brought into the kunoichi 'clique' and Anko for one isn't shy about interrogating her over the more - ah - intimate aspects of hers and Kakashi's relationship. Rin usually goes a funny color when she does and Kurenai shuts her friend up with an elbow jab while Shizune snickers into her drink. Ever the oblivious one, Gai kicked the door down one afternoon about two months ago, demanding to know why Kakashi was three hours late for their weekly spar. He'd completely stalled when he found both of them asleep on the small bed, still in their torn and dirty uniforms from the previous night's mission. He saw Rin cradling Kakashi's head in her lap, her fingers resting on his bandadged cheek, both lost from the world, and left them be. He spent the rest of the day crying loudly about how love was the most beautiful thing in the world and hugged just about everyone he knew hard enough to cause bruising.

Maybe love was the most beautiful thing in the world, but right now for those two it was the most necessary thing. They're not even 29 years old and already they've lived lifetimes of injury, worlds of hurt and guilt and grief. They've both been scarred, separated and shaken to their souls most of their lives - and more people than they realize wonder how they've avoided the insane assylum. Somehow they have to balance this out, and they love each other so much they might just manage it.

It's not perfect by any means. They're more than a little dysfunctional, less than completely certain what they're doing, and still don't always believe that the other one is next to them at night. Four days ago Kakashi didn't come home from a week-long mission and Rin found him sitting on the boulder he'd woken up on the day Obito died. He hadn't said anything, but she knew he'd been afraid to come home incase he'd imagined the past few months and she wasn't really there. She'd led him home by the hand, and fallen in love with him all over again. A dozen times Kakashi has come home and for reasons neither of them understand she hasn't been able to stop crying at the sight of him. The first time she'd seen the evidence of the injuries on him she hadn't been around to heal, Rin hadn't been able to look him in the eyes for days and she'd felt something break inside her that she didn't know how to fix.

But they need each other. Because when his nightmares come she'll wake him up and remind him that someone is still with him. If she feels too afraid to let him go he'll stay with her until she can. When he starts to slip away from stable in his painfully precarious mind she'll try to catch him before he can fall too hard. If she can't keep down tears he'll keep them secret between them and try to make it better. When they both miss Obito and their Sensei and the lives they should have led more than they can bear they just look into each other's eyes and try to survive the night together. When they start to shake with horror over the things they've seen and done and feel they kiss each other and make love until they can't breathe and they've forgotten everything down to their own names.

They're more than co-dependent, they're approaching symbiotic, and even though they're undeniable geniuses in their own rights they can't figure a way out of this one. It's ridiculous for shinobi to attach to each other like they have, and given their track records this is probably suicide.

But it's been three months since she came home, and neither of them understands how they survived this long alone.

So in the end, they'll take every second they can get whether it hurts or heals because this is how it is when everything goes as right as it can go. Hopefully for them it'll be right enough.

You may have guessed this is set in a way speculative future, but I figured given my current ff track record the two of them needed a damn break! As the song says, this is how I imagine it would be for them if everything went as right as it could go.

Reviews appreciated, but even more appreciated is if this made you feel anything.

The author would like to thank you for your continued support. Your review has been posted.